Cheyth: The Life Dynamic of Run and Return

Cheyth is the letter of life (chaim, from the root chayah, whose most important letter is Cheyth). We are taught in that there are two levels of life "essential life" and "life to enliven." יהוה  (Yahweh) Himself, as it were, is in the state of "Essential life." His creative power, continually permeating all of reality is "life to enliven." So in the Jewish soul: the essence of its root, at one with יהוה (Yahweh), possesses the state of "essential life." The reflection of the light of the soul which shines below to enliven the body and its physical experience is at the level of "life to enliven." The second level of life, life as we know it in general, manifests itself as pulsation, the secret of "run and return."


According to the Ari z"l," the letter Cheyth is constructed by combining the two previous letters, Waw and Zayin, with a thin bridge-shaped line, referred to as the chatoteret ("hunchback"). The new energy effected by the union of the Waw--or yashar--and the Zayin--or chozer--is the secret of "hovering" or "touching yet not touching." The image of "hovering" appears at the very beginning of Creation: "And the spirit of יהוה (Yahweh) was 'hovering' over the water." The word "hovering" (merachefet) is the eighteenth word in the Torah. It is the first word in the Torah which is numerically a multiple of twenty-six, the value of the Name Havayah (merachefet = 728 = 26 times 28). Twenty-eight is the numerical value of koach, "power." Thus, the full secret implied by the numerical value of the word "hovering" is "the power of יהוה (Yahweh)." In Kabbalah, this word is, in particular, the secret of the Divine power to resurrect the 288 fallen sparks that "died" in the process of the "breaking of the vessels" (merachefet being a permutation of meit rapach, "288 have died"). The Sages teach us that the "Spirit of יהוה (Yahweh)" here referred to is in fact the soul of Mashiach (which permutes to shem chai, "the living name").


"Hovering" is symbolized in Torah "as an eagle arouses her nest and hovers over her young," as taught by the Maggid of Mezeritch. In order not to crush her young and their nest, the eagle hovers over her nest when feeding her young, "touching yet not touching." The eagle here is a metaphor for יהוה (Yahweh) in relation to His children Israel in particular and to the totality of His Creation in general. Were יהוה (Yahweh) to either fully reveal His ultimate Presence or withdraw His power of continuous re-creation, the world would instantaneously cease to exist.


Therefore, by "hovering" over created reality, יהוה (Yahweh) continues to sustain and nourish His Creation while simultaneously allowing each creature or, in the terminology of Kabbalah, each vessel, the ability to grow and develop "independently." The letter Cheyth thus hints at the delicate balance between the revelation of יהוה (Yahweh)’s Presence to us (the Waw of the Cheyth) and the concealment of His creative power from His Creation (the Zayin of the Cheyth).


This state of "hovering," "touching yet not touching," is the beginning of the phenomenon of "life to enliven." "Touching yet not touching" from Above thereafter reflects itself as "run and return" in the inner pulsation of every living creature. "And the living creatures [chayot] run and return like the appearance of lightning." Do not read chayot ("living creatures") but chayut, ("life-force").


The chatoteret, that sublime thin line that connects the two components or motion of the "life to enliven," itself points upward. It hints at "He who lives at the summit of the world," יהוה (Yahweh)’s "Essential Life." In truth, His Essence paradoxically fills and sustains all created reality while simultaneously "hovering" high above the level of the "hovering" life-force itself, unfathomable and beyond all human perception.

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FORM

A Waw on the right, a Zayin on the left, with a thin, hunchback bridge (chatoteret) connecting them above.

Worlds:

·  A gateway: the power to enter a higher energy level and exit therefrom.

·  The ascent of all worlds on Shabbath and their subsequent descent after Shabbath.

·  (At the level of Souls: the power to enter the mysteries of one’s own soul and thereafter return to worldly consciousness.)

·  (At the level of Divinity: the power to enter the mysteries of the Torah and thereafter return to the consciousness of one’s task on earth.)

Souls:

·  The union of three partners in man: father (Waw), mother (Zayin), and יהוה (Yahweh) (chatoteret, chupah).

·  The marital dance.

Divinity:

·  “ יהוה (Yahweh) lives at the summit of the world"--the chatoteret.

·  יהוה (Yahweh) "hovering" over Creation.

·  The union of יהוה (Yahweh)'s immanence, transcendence, and the Jewish People.

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NAME

Fear; Life--whose full expression is love.

Worlds:

·  Loving יהוה (Yahweh) with one's physical body.

·  Life-force of the body.

Souls:

·  Loving יהוה (Yahweh) with one's soul.

·  Lifeforce of the soul.

·  The heartbeat of the tzadik

Divinity:

·  Essential unity with יהוה (Yahweh).

·  Life-force of life itself.

·  Resurrection of the dead.

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NUMBER

Eight

Worlds:

·  Eight vertices of a cube.

·  Three-dimensional plurality.

·  " יהוה (Yahweh) is one in the seven heavens and the earth."

Souls:

·  The eighth day - the day of circumcision.

·  The eight days of Chanukah - "The candle of יהוה (Yahweh) is the soul of man."

·  The circumcision of the foreskin of the lips on (Zot) Chanukah.

·  The circumcision of the foreskin of the ears on the eighth day of Sukkot.

·  The circumcision of the foreskin of the heart on Yom Kippur, the eighth day of the High Priest’s separation.

Divinity:

·  Gateway to infinity.

· יהוה (Yahweh)’s Transcendent Light.

·  Origin of the Jewish soul and its descent through the seven heavens to earth.

Zayin: The Woman of Valor

The Maggid of Mezeritch, the successor of the Ba’al Shem Towb, teaches that the verse "A woman of valor is the crown of her husband" alludes to the form of the letter Zayin. The previous letter, Waw, portrays the Or Yashar ("straight light") descending from YAHWEH into the worlds. The Zayin, whose form is similar to a Waw, though with a crown on top, reflects the Or Yashar of the Waw as Or Chozer ("returning light"). Or Chozer ascends with such great force that it causes you to reach a higher state of consciousness than that of the revealed origin-point of the Or Yashar. When reaching the initially superconscious realm of Keter or in other words, the "crown," it broadens your awareness to both the right and the left. In truth "there is no left in that Ancient One in the level of Keter, for all is right (Titus 1:15)." This means that the awe of YAHWEH (left) at this initially superconscious level is indistinguishable, in its nature to cling directly to YAHWEH, from the highest manifestation of the love of YAHWEH (right).

The experience of Or Chozer, subsequent to the consummation of the creative process inherent in Or Yashar, the creation of man on the sixth day, is the secret of the seventh day of Creation--Shabbath. The "Shabbath Queen" who, in general, signifies woman in relation to man--"the woman of valor is the crown of her husband"-- has the power to reveal in her husband his own superconscious crown, the experience of serene pleasure and sublime will innate in the day of Shabbath.

"Who is a good [literally, "kosher"] woman? She who does her husband’s will." Chassidut explains that the word "does" also means "rectifies," as said in the completion of the account of Creation & the seal of the seventh day, Shabbath: "that which YAHWEH created to do"-- "to do" in the sense of "to rectify," thus implying that YAHWEH has given us the task to consummate the rectification of His Creation, as explained by the Sages. Thus the "kosher woman" is she who rectifies her husband’s will by elevating him to ever new awareness of previously superconscious realms of soul.

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FORM

A "Waw" whose head extends in both directions and thus appears as a crown. Scepter of a King.

Worlds:

• Rulership manifested in the world.
• "Natural" selection.

Souls:

• "A woman of valor is the crown of her husband." Sarah: the soul’s experience of Shabbath and Kabbalah.
• The election of the Jewish People.

Divinity:

• Shabbath, Kabbalah.
• Returning light spreading, at its peak, to the left - fear, and to the right - love.
• Becoming a vessel for YAHWEH’s blessing and sanctity.

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NAME

Weapon - sword; ornament or crown; species - gender; to sustain.

Worlds :

Weapon - a sword.

Conflict as an inherent property of physical nature.

Souls:

Species or gender; the union of husband and wife.

Man is the crowning ornament of Creation.

YAHWEH’s three crowns, two of which He gives to His children.

Divinity:

YAHWEH sustaining the world.

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NUMBER

Seven - "All sevens are dear."

Worlds :

Maximal compactness.

The seventh day of Creation - Shabbat.

Seven weeks of counting the Omer.

Seven consecutive months in which fall the three Festivals.

The sabbatical year; The jubilee year, after 7 times 7 years.

The seventh millennium.

Seven fruits of Israel; Seven seas; Seven heavens.

Seven chambers of Paradise.

Souls:

Seven lamps of the menorah; seven categories of Jewish souls.

Seven shepherds of Israel: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David.

Seven circuits, seven blessings, and seven days of celebration of groom and bride.

Seven Rabbinic mitzvot.

Divinity:

Seven "eyes" of YAHWEH watch over all Creation.

Seven lower sefirot.

Tishrei, the seventh month:

Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, the revelation of Divine Providence,

Sukkot Seven clouds of glory,

Simchat Torah - Seven Hakafot.

Waw: Connection

In the beginning of Creation, when Infinite Light filled all reality, YAHWEH contracted His Light to create hollow empty space, as it were, the "place" necessary for the existence of finite worlds. Into this vacuum YAHWEH drew down, figuratively speaking, a single line of light, from the Infinite Source. This ray of light is the secret of the letter Waw. Though the line is singular in appearance, it nonetheless possesses two dimensions, an external as well as an internal force, both of which take part in the process of Creation and the continuous interaction between the creative power and created reality.

The external force of the line is the power to differentiate and separate the various aspects of reality, thereby establishing hierarchical order, up and down, within Creation. The internal force of the line is the power to reveal the inherent interinclusion of the various aspects of reality, one in the other, thereby joining them together as an organic whole. This property of the letter Waw, in its usage in Hebrew, is referred to as Waw hachibur, the Waw of connection"--"and." The first Waw of the Torah--"In the beginning YAHWEH created the heavens and [Waw] the earth"--serves to join spirit and matter, heaven and the earth, throughout Creation. This Waw, which appears at the beginning of the sixth word of the Torah, is the twenty-second letter of the verse. It alludes to the power to connect and interrelate all twenty-two individual powers of Creation, the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet from alef to Tav. (The word et [which appears before the two instances of the word "the" in this verse, and is spelled Aleph-Tav] is generally taken to represent all the letters of the alphabet, from Aleph to Tav. Our Sages interpret the word in this verse to include all the various objects of Creation present within heaven and earth.)

In Biblical Hebrew, the letter Waw also possesses the function of inverting the apparent tense of a verb to its opposite from past to future or from future to past (Waw hahipuch). The first appearance of this type of Waw in the Torah is the letter Waw" which begins the twenty-second word of the account of Creation, "And YAHWEH said...." This is the first explicit saying of the ten sayings of Creation: "And YAHWEH said [the verb 'said' being inverted from the future to the past tense by the vav at the beginning of the word--'And']: 'Let there be light,' and there was light." The phenomenon of light breaking through the darkness of the tzimtzum, the primordial contraction, is itself the secret of time (future becoming past) which permeates space.

In the Divine service of a Jew, the power to draw from the future into the past is the secret of teshuvah ("repentance" and "returning to YAHWEH") from love. Through teshuvah from fear, one's deliberate transgressions become like errors; the severity of one's past transgressions becomes partially sweetened, but not completely changed. However, when a you return in love, his deliberate transgressions become like actual merits, for the very consciousness of distance from YAHWEH resulting from one's transgressions becomes the motivating force to return to YAHWEH with passion even greater than that of one who had never sinned.

Every Jew has a portion in the World to Come, as is said: "And all your nation are 'tzadikim'; forever they will inherit the land." The power of teshuvah to completely convert one's past to good, is the power of the vav to invert the past to the future. This transformation itself requires, paradoxically, the drawing down of light from the future to the past.

Drawing the future into the past in the Divine service of man is the secret of learning the inner teachings of the Torah, that aspect of the Torah which is related to the revelation of the coming of the Mashiach. It is explained in the verse in the Song of Solomon: "May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine" as alluding to the sweet teachings that will be revealed by the YAHWEH BEN YAHWEH BEN YAHWEH. When a you intently study the secrets of the Torah, you draw from the future into the past, in order to strengthen yourself to return in complete teshuvah from love and thereby convert your past into future.

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FORM

A vertical line. A pillar. A man standing upright.

Worlds:

Twelve pillars of Creation - the twelve lines of a cube. The twelve tribes.

Seven pillars of Creation - six directions and time. The seven shepherds.

One pillar of Creation the future. Mashiach.

The connecting rods in the Tabernacle.

Souls:

Complete stature of man - standing on earth with head reaching up towards heaven.

The Hebrew People standing together.

The "Golden Path" in the service of YAHWEH.

The torso in relation to the hands, feet, and brit.

Divinity:

The pillar of Truth.

Consistency of the middle pillar.

Divinity piercing through the middle point of every Creation.

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NAME

A Hook

Worlds:

The connecting hooks of the pillars in the Tabernacle - concealment and revelation.

The axis of symmetry and the equilibrium between symmetry and asymmetry.

Souls:

The power which links together the souls of Yisrael.

The points of will to do YAHWEH's Will engraved in the heart of every Hebrew.

The axis which connects the good points present within every Hebrew.

Divinity:

The connecting link between the separate Laws - engraved letters of Divine essence - of the Torah.

The force of connection between the Divine sparks inherent throughout reality.

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NUMBER

Six

Worlds:

Six Days of Creation, and their six corresponding Divine forces active in creation.

Six letters of the word bereshit, "In the beginning."

Six Alephs in the first verse of the Torah.

Six-millennium duration of the world.

Six directions of the physical world.

Souls:

Six wings (states of love and fear in the soul) of the fiery angels.

"Give truth to Jacob."

Divinity:

Six orders of the Mishnah.

The six "wings" of the "Magen David."

Six cubits - the dimensions of the Tablets received by Moses at Mt. Sinai.